NEW DELHI: The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, which completed 12 years in power at the Center on Tuesday, may make a fresh attempt to get support from other political parties to pass the delimitation bill in the Lok Sabha, where it lacks numbers, people familiar with the details said. The alliance, which is the single largest bloc in Rajya Sabha, does not have the numbers to pass the bill in the Upper House either.
Her efforts are back in the news given the turmoil in the Trinamool Congress (TMC), a section of whose MPs are threatening to secede and are likely to support the BJP, and amid speculation that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, who has broken out of the All India Bloc of opposition parties, is talking with the BJP.
The Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill 2026 or the Delimitation Bill, which seeks to redraw boundaries based on the 2011 census and which is a prerequisite for implementing 33% quotas for women in legislatures, requires a two-thirds majority to pass, which the NDA does not currently have.
According to people familiar with the details, the government may reconsider some provisions of the bill to garner support from parties not allied with the opposition India Bloc.
“We had detailed discussions with parties including those from the South, which had major reservations about the delimitation bill. We assured them that none of these states would suffer, as the total number would increase, but since Tamil Nadu and Kerala were committed to the elections, they chose not to support the bill. Now, the government will communicate again with more clarity,” he said. said a party official familiar with the details.
The bill, which is unlikely to be introduced in the upcoming monsoon session, was defeated in the enlarged Budget session, when the 293-member NDA in the 543-member Lok Sabha failed to secure the support of the opposition parties. The split in the Trinamool Congress, with 20 MPs on Monday signaling their decision to support the NDA in the Lok Sabha, has raised hopes of an easy passage of the bill, even as all eyes are on parties like the DMK which has 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 8 in the Rajya Sabha.
“We do not have the required numbers at the moment… In the past, the party approached senior KDP leaders including (former Prime Minister) MK Stalin and TKS Elangovan, but they must have felt that taking an anti-demarcation stance would help them…” said a second party functionary.
To reach the number required to pass the bill in the Lok Sabha, the government has indicated that it will explain how the total number of seats will be increased to ensure that states where population control measures have been followed do not lose out. There was no written confirmation regarding the increase in the number of seats in the previous bill.
In the current 540-member House, the NDA has 293 members and needs 360 to pass the bill, while it needs 164 votes in the 245-member Rajya Sabha, which has 149 members.
“The government will see how it can address the opposition’s concerns, including the fear of shrinking seats in the southern region… and whether their demand for the baseline can be met,” the first official said.
Opposition parties, including the DMK, have demanded that instead of implementing delimitation on the basis of the 2011 census, the government should continue with the 1971 population baseline so that states that have successfully stabilized their populations are not penalised. The government’s verbal assurance that seats would be increased proportionately for all states did not cut ice with the southern states, which feared that states whose populations continued to grow, such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, would benefit at their expense.
The government has proposed decoupling the delimitation process from the ongoing population census, forming new constituencies based on the 2011 census and increasing the total seats in the Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 of which 273 are reserved for women.
